for the next 90 minutes we will explore the history and the people that played a important role in westward expansion. >> i think somethings have been overridden, billy the kid and jesse james, those iconic, really iconic stories and when you write about someone, 90% have not heard his name. >> we will also take a look at the tribe that are arapaho's are dealing with today. >> i mean, it is just so degraded and so poor and so beat down. but nobody thought that they would be around. and they didn't even think that

they would be around, but they survived. >> we began our special feature with author john davis on the invasion of johnson county, wyoming, in 1892. [inaudible conversations] >> in wyoming it was very early settle by large cattleman and large operation in the southern part of the county and then in the northern part of the county they were individuals. at a very early time they insisted that they were being robbed blind and the northern part of the state had been cut off from the southern part of the date in the sense that it was the northeast area that had

been set aside for indian tribes for hunting. so in turn is shut off the rest of the northern part of the state, the area to the north and west of the big one reason and after that custer battle, all that was shifted around and all that became of that became open. what happen if there was a huge rush by entrepreneurs to get in there and get that grazing land, that rich grazing land that you put cattle on. and it's all open land. and it was owned by private individuals. and they would go in there and sees it and they would start fighting people and to what growth as a culture of independent domain, they said we are going to prevent homesteaders from coming in and we will stop anyone from taking

our land away from them. but it wasn't their land, it was a time in the country on the part of the entrepreneur class, there was a really big feeling of power, and it was enormous agitation between labor and capital during that time. part of that, these people felt that they had a right control their little domains. and so we were only going to go so far in democratic america. so i define it as a series of murders events that started two men were almost killed the first of december of 1891 in april of 1892, 52 men came north to johnson county. and an enormous amount of dispute as to why these people

came more and what they said was in johnson county the small cattleman were stealing from them and it was another word for stealing. and because of that they were insisting that they must take strong action to force cattle conviction. but what the people of the northern part of the state was to force these people off of the land. it was all free land and they made a lot of money and the land laws were still in effect, which meant that any homestead could come here and get his 160 acres, which in turn took away the most valuable land away from the cattleman. and the instances of that was one a whole stream was taken

away from the big cattle operation and completely ruined the area. this is an area that is extremely dry except for except for certain large streams that come out of big mountains. in one of the ugly things is that their objection of his to mr. go up there and kill the county commissioners until the sheriffs and kill other people and replace them with people who are more to their liking. the government of the state, a medical doctor that was very close to the cattleman that was headquartered in cheyenne and he was personal friends with all of them to the point that when these people came riding up more to casper and they rode horses, they had a cover that was given to them by the state of wyoming and he had gone so far as to

wire to the heads of the local militia and tell them not to follow the instructions of the local sheriff so that when the invasion actually happens the sheriff of johnson county went to the militia and said that i need help in the man's as i cannot do it. here is the wire from the governor of the state of wyoming. so there was a lot of fear about that later. in 1892 they came up on the far side of casper and they got off the train and they got their horses and they started riding north. the objective of was to write to southern johnson county. when they arrived it is covered that one of their primary target was only a little bit further north. and they talk to the man that they attacked and it was november 301 of 1891 and they had not been successful. instead they shot back at him

and he became the prime witness in the case of attempted murder. so they wanted to kill him because he was the primary witness against criminal charges that were being vigorously pursued against the leaders of the assassination squad that were the big shots in the association and i believe it was the ninth of april of 1892 and the idea is that they were going to kill these men and the only problem was that one was a very tough guy. so there were 50 men lazing around him and by 3:00 o'clock there were three wounded in the significance of that is that the people of the area figured out what was going on and what

finally happened there they went down there but this had given him time because early some of the local neighbors there came over and looked outerbridge and given a lot of the newspapers, they were threatening to kill people and they alerted the sheriff. and then what happened is after they've finished they started moving north and by then the country was completely aroused and they grab their rifles and went charging after these guys and they finally culminated in which 45 cattleman were holed up in the a huge posse was surrounding him. over 400 men and they started shooting away at them like crazy

and they reached a point where they built this incredible device and the ideas that they were going to push this down the hell to throw into this and force them out and start shooting at them. just about that time, the united states travelers showed up and rescued these individuals and what would happen is that the governor of the state of wyoming had finally figured out that these men were in trouble in that first he denied everything that was going on. he did everything to give them a clear killing field, but it backfired on them and suddenly they were trapped and in deep trouble and they weren't going to give up and you can bet that those settlers were going to take it in one way or another. but just as they were closing in, the calvary showed up and when he figured out they were in

trouble, they wired back and said there is an insurrection in the state of wyoming, but there wasn't one. there were lawbreakers that were then rounded and that is not the way he worded it. he said that it has to be stopped and bloodshed prevented and his friends could not be heard in any way and then what happened is they couldn't get a hold of the president, so they wired to the two wyoming senators who were coincidentally big shots. so they had huge cattle holdings and they went to the white house and they pulled benjamin harrison out of bed and they said they you have to present this bloodshed from being a tragedy. so they went to fort mckenney, next to buffalo, they got on their horses in the middle of the night and they started

writing and they showed up about 7:00 o'clock in the rescued all these cattleman and they took them back up to fort mckenney and what happened then is that the governor of wyoming through some kind of crazy arrangement gain control of these men and they refuse to let any interview them for the criminal cases and he completely undercut the criminal charges and then he told them he can run and do whatever they want to do. in the meantime johnston county is doing everything that they can and in so the situation came to that they finally were able to set up the trial for january of 93. because the people were outraged and so you can imagine that the people were going to vote and

the officeholders have been clearly identified and they ran to their aid and infuriated the people of wyoming area so what they wanted to do was put off the trial so it wouldn't be so much in the public mind. and a total landslide in 1892. the republicans through the rascals out. but the problem after that is that you had a case that because of the various shenanigans, i go back and reread the book and the one thing that shocks me is the complete hijacking of the judicial system and these men got away with murder. they were tried in cheyenne and at that time they couldn't be the jury and that was mostly because of a very bad ruling of

a judge is saying that you have to try all the men together which meant that you could never see the jury and he had to let them all go. and i started writing a series of books on history starting in 1993 and i became very much interested and they resulted in trials and if an interesting thing. there was one major trial after another and after an effort, it snuffed out this and i mentioned 1892 trial here. there was in 1902 trial of tom horne and i just finished a book about that. those were snuffed out, the

continuing attempts of cattleman to terrorize and kill people. at the end of it in 1909, they pretty much finished the job and wyoming was able to take its place with a true democracy and so the state of wyoming has always been a conservative state that is comparable with republicans. but they certainly want him closely. they never again let people get away with that kind of thing. so wyoming has a long tradition of spit in your eye independence. they just weren't going to put up with the kind of nonsense that happened. >> during the reason but to be visit to casper, wyoming, we talked